Steam reviews

[Feathered_IV]

So, why are you 2 still here?

 

I'm still here certainly.  Although I'm rarely in-game for the reasons I've described.  I'll see how things go this year.

[AstroCat]

I don't think we are asking for huge story cut scenes but more in-game immersion.

 

1. A really in depth Career mode (coming, which is great to see!) will go a long way.

2. In-game out of flight UI art that creates the feel and mood of the era and nation you are flying for.

3. Nation specific music and sfx during the out of flight phases.

4. During flight comms and chatter would be nice super easy add.

5. Cool out of flight war updates would be very good, something like war progression updates, news from the world etc.

6. Some key moment short cut scenes for events, like getting medals, pilot death, promotion, completing large campaign goals, etc...

 

See? There are some things that could go a long way to help with immersion and flavor without huge added expense or over the top story cut scenes during the campaign.

Edited December 18, 2017 by AstroCat

[Mmaruda]

 

 

See? There are some things that could go a long way to help with immersion and flavor without huge added expense or over the top story cut scenes during the campaign.

 

True, however, we do not really have an idea if these things are that easy to implement - software development can be quite tricky, especially if you decided on a format that does not support certain features well, and you want to implement them later. It might seem easy to us consumers, but in reality adding some stills or animations might require a lot of time and resources. I don't know how BOX is built, but going into development as part of my job recently, I found that the simplest of things can be a tedious and time consuming chore to implement not to mention possible repercussions to stability and functionality of the rest. Seriously, when I get a request from a customer who insists that a specific button should be red instead of blue and on the left side instead of the right side and have backlog of potentially businesses-impacting things that should take priority, I want to kick the dude in the balls. I mean just look at the whole campaign thing - should have been easy to add scripted campaigns right? But the devs of IL-2 worked hard for several months to introduce it, I imagine this wasn't easy or quick, considering initially the concept was different, so it's fairly possible certain things were completely left out of the software not to make it a mess. Backtracking from one concept to introduce certain features originally not planed can sometime take more time than starting from scratch. On the other hand, you can design an engine with potential support for everything and end up with a mess that hardly anyone on the dev team comprehends and that is on top of performance issues and the requirement for detailed documentation (BTW documenting software is something that isn't really a thing anymore). So imagine at this point a knowledgeable employee leaves the company and the rest of the team is left with guessing and tedious trial and error, because for some reason changing a specific variable for a menu option breaks the stability of the whole product and it makes no sense, and nobody knows why. I am not saying BOX is that sort of product, but in reality, as customers we have no idea what challenges the devs face and something that seems super-easy from our perspective may well be an epic feat for GUI designer.

 

There is this development framework called MOSCOW (Must have, Should have, Can have, and Won't have) - this determines priorities on features in a software package. Must would be the FM, DM, planes, animations, working AI and online, Should have would be the campaign and other SP features, Can have would refer to coop, player progression, weapon mods and so one, and Won't have will be everything else we have no time for before the deadline for the next iteration. You can see where I am going with this. If we keep making demands for cosmetic things outside the game proper and the devs acknowledge every single one of those, we'll be waiting for meaningful patches for ages and the dev team will be swamped with hardly relevant work instead of focusing on fixing and adding crucial stuff. Not to mention some devs might get fed up with this crap and go looking for other work (fun fact: doing corporate software development pays better than game development and people have life outside of their jobs more than often involving a demanding spouse that just doesn't understand why doing overtime to fix the some WWII plane FM is more important than spending time with her and the kids).

 

I understand where all of you dudes are coming from, I have been there and the initial release of BOS was hardly a thing that I expected, but now that a shift in what the game is supposed to be happened, I appreciate the hard work and listening to the community and try to fly more and expect less and actually all that flying is very enjoyable, because let's face it, there is a ton of content to try and a very solid online mode as well as good SP campaigns (2 paid, several more free). Once you are in the cockpit, flying a proper route, mission-focused trying to do the job, it is really tons of fun. The worst thing you can do in this day and age is to own a game from the genre you love and not play it, because you are waiting for some feature that is to come next month. Seriously, I play many sim-genres, compared to the more popular and more profitable racing sims, the last iteration of IL-2 really does excel in terms of complete status.

 

Just go to the campaign section here and get one of the free ones like Cold Winter, read the briefings take your time, maybe use a dose of imagination and start flying like you are the average pilot on the Eastern Front, focusing on doing the mission proper and surviving - I guarantee you will feel immersed. And if that is not enough, grab some pals, hop onto WOL, pick a bomber, pick a target and try to fly close formation with good communication and focus on just doing the job you planned. It IS fun and it IS immersive - you are flying a WWII plane in a combat scenario after all, the game provides that to you, if you can't find value in this, what is life worth aye?

[Picchio]

 

 

If we keep making demands for cosmetic things outside the game proper and the devs acknowledge every single one of those, we'll be waiting for meaningful patches for ages and the dev team will be swamped with hardly relevant work instead of focusing on fixing and adding crucial stuff.

 

It's up to the developers to design and build a strong project. It's them who must convince the community about the project's vital elements, not the other way around.

[Mmaruda]

 

 

t's up to the developers to design and build a strong project. It's them who must convince the community about the project's vital elements, not the other way around.

 

Well obviously, but isn't the communication with the community good recently? In my minds they have been honest and straightforward and are delivering the crucial stuff with a steady stream of content. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I do get the impression that they are trying hard to provide a better product with focus on the majority of the community's most forward-put expectations. If we look on the forum there are many threads discussing those "Must haves" I mentioned - AI, FMs, campaigns etc, but very few if any talk on stuff like cut-scenes, music, menus and other immersion-building features. So far, my impression was that they are trying to deliver what the majority of customers are asking for the most at the same time making it clear that certain things aren't possible soon.

 

As I said, there are still things in the backlog that are Must haves and those take priority over something like more immersive menus and possible cut-scenes which would be Can haves at best.

 

Let me be clear here, I am not saying you people who want this and that to look nicer, should be quiet. By all means voice those requests, but consider there are more important things and at the end of the day, it's a business, the team has to chose that is crucial and what is just some nice looking stuff that would appeal to a limited number of people. And also, consider that some of those things might not even be possible, despite the communities belief it's easy to add. Yes, it's up to the developers to design a strong project, but with every idea there are limitation and in a niche market those are even bigger (like your FM coder not only has to know programming, but also has to know how planes work - good luck trying to find 10 people like this in a single country).

 

In essence, it works like this: as devs we need to put out features the community wants but we also need to make money to put food on our table. Hence we add features to keep current customers interested and add paid content to get some money from both current and potential customers. At the end of the day, if you aren't really liking how the game develops, there are only to choices, either try co get a following for the stuff you want and convince the devs it's financially valuable or better yet more valuable then the stuff they are making, or just move somewhere else. I know I sound like an ass, but 1CGS/777 isn't really something like EA or Activision in terms of resources. Pricing is also key here, just have a look at the cost of FSX addons, hell even DCS addons. For the price of $90 you can get BOM Premium and a scripted campaign. Just to compare the Spitfire for DCS comes at $50 and that does not include a campaign, a map or guarantee that you'll find a multi-player server running the stock Caucasus that includes that plane (true, it's got a clickable pit). It's time-consuming and expensive to make with a small market - you wan't to sell a lot at a reasonable price to as large an audience as possible, not spend ages in development with little income on less popular features.

[Oubaas]

Airplanes

Maps

Free flight

Combat

 

That's all I need, and it ain't boring. I don't require atmosphere or cut scenes or anything fancy. As long as I can fly and enjoy well-crafted sim aircraft with a variety of maps, and indulge in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat when I feel like it, I'm good to go. It's mostly about the airplanes for me. Sometimes I just take off out of Maykop, fly over the mountains to the sea, and then fly all the way down the coast and land, without any combat.

 

But, I enjoy strafing ground targets, bombing, and most especially, air-to-air engagements as well.

 

My imagination provides the ambience and the era, with a little help from my Oculus Rift CV1.

[Lemon]

i agree with people said the game lack of immersion.

2 things i d say, Communications with AI, both way, me to them, them to me, and more campaigns diversity, as a SP, right now, if i play any chapter BOM or BOS, it s almost always the same distances at same altitudes with same numbers of opponents, with not very useful AI coms.

I wish a wingman can say when he need help when E on his 6 per exemple... old games involving wingmens like the very old USNF, il2-1946 or even games like tie fighter had better communications, i remember in USNF wingman saying when he was low on fuel ( i m running on fumes !) those little thing add life,diversity and fun to the game.

Now adding other theaters of war will be nice  but campaigns imersion need to be better to keep players longtime on the sim

 

The game is mostly played SP if i m well informed, and those 2 things are less than basic in BOx series, Fortunatly PWCG keep me playing for now, big thanks to Patrick who give his time to do this for  other people like me !

 

i got high hopes for the new campaigns system and hopefully new comms with AI , and  with the quality of every other aspects of this game i got no doubt the BOx dev team can do the best ww2 game/sim in those both area too.

 

regards

 

edited to correct some English mistakes, my apologies

Edited December 19, 2017 by Lemon

[DaGengster]

isn't you tube pretty much a defacto resource these days for pretty much anything that we are not sure how to do ? I even fixed my washing machine thanks to YT.

 

Problem with BoX is one tutorial would not fit all. Take off for example. most german AC you need to kick right rudder to keep straight on the runway, where as allied AC are a mix. Also you might get people buy the game knowing nothing about principles of flight, where as more experienced simmers / pilots, may want to know very specific things.

 

I think a tutorial would be a whole lot of work, that would have little real benefit at the end of day. If people really want answers, a very quick search would help them find them.

I think this really depends on the person. Similar to other sim communities out there, there is a scale of how much effort people are willing to put in to learn something. Even with youtube, there's still a lot more to learn relative to the other arcade/arcadesim games out there. On one side of the scale, you have people who read the entire 250 pages of chucks guide before starting a plane, and the other side are people who want things to just "work" with out them investing anytime. While the latter side will probably not stay for long as sims are usually not easy to learn, the people in the areas in between I think is where an ingame tutorial can really benefit.

 

Take DCS for example, arguably, controlling modern planes are significantly more complicated with all the buttons and stuff. However with the interactive tutorial they have, a new person can easily figure out the basics and "make things go boom". Yes, they can just go to a youtube channel and figure it out, but I believe a in game interactive tutorial, where you actually do the things is a lot more effective and engaging.

It doesnt need to be complex as well. simular to what someone suggested already, starting a single flight with a slow unarmed target plane is the easiest way to learn. The tutorial can simply be something like that, but with pauses every now and then telling the player what he should do and the basics. For the already experienced people they can just skip it all together, or start at certain parts if they want a refresher. Also because of steam's 2 hour refund policy, essentially this has to teach them basic maneuvers and leading simple targets within 2 hours.

 

Another option is to make the game "free trial", where they have one plane, a tutorial and simple targets they can shoot down. Then they can see if its their cup of tea before buying a module.

 

TL:DR - A simple in game interactive tutorial can significantly lower the frustration levels of someone just starting off and therefore encourage them to stay.

Edited December 19, 2017 by DaGengster